In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Muslims braced themselves. Some retreated, shuttering stores and newsstands. Others displayed flags prominently in their windows, and they symbolized the bearers’ fear as much as their patriotism. Bigots, the thinking went, would surely see the red, white and blue and think twice about harassing a fellow countryman.

European Pressphoto Agency

Aaron Cohen, left, an opponent of a proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque near the World Trade Center site, argues with a supporter of the mosque at a rally Sunday.

And a backlash did sweep the nation: On Sept. 12, 2001, police in Bridgeview, Ill., turned back 300 demonstrators who waved flags and shouted “USA! USA!” as they tried to march on a mosque in that Chicago suburb. Three days later, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a turbaned Sikh who owned a gas station in Mesa, Ariz., was fatally shot by a man who, after killing him, shot and injured a Lebanese-American clerk at another gas station.

Another man drove his pick-up truck into the door of the Islamic Center Mosque in Tallahassee, Fla., while two jars filled with cotton and gasoline were set on fire in front of a restaurant in Utah owned by a Pakistani-American.

But the most violent and visible retaliations against Muslim-Americans somehow spared New York. In fact, politicians added mosques to their rounds and imams joined rabbis and priests at press conferences.

Desai’s group has said that the city’s cabbies are high alert. This time around, flags in their windows might not keep them safe.

S. Mitra Kalita is an editor on the Greater New York section and has written extensively about immigration and the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. She is the author of “Suburban Sahibs: Three immigrant families and their passage from India to America,” and was included in the anthology, “At Ground Zero: The reporters who were there tell their stories.”